By Marcus Uhe
Pakenham Netball Club A Grade coach Matthew Cooke is a wanted man, charged with elevating the Lions to levels unseen in recent years.
Cooke earlier this month solidified his netball future by recommitting to the Lions as well as signing to coach the Peninsula Waves in the Victorian Netball League, concluding his tenure at the Southern Saints.
As a result of his commitment to Pakenham, he has ensured a level of stability and continuity at Toomuc Reserve that every club sets out to achieve, along with his partner in crime, Karen Meredith.
And with considerable expectations on the team in the coming years, it’s easy to understand why Cooke wishes to see the fruits of his labour, declaring his side could become a “powerhouse”.
With the Lions embarking on a regeneration of its playing stocks with Cooke at the helm, the continuity in performance and alignment in age groups has the head coach believing they are ready to strike.
All four senior grades of netball are preparing for finals action, a testament to the strength of the program.
“Pakenham has been in a long term rebuild, a three-five year plan that Marg (Jones, president) and the team have worked tirelessly to deliver across all four senior sides and junior sides,” Cooke said of his desire to remain at the club.
“The performance and development of players all the way through is developing year on year and from my perspective, we’ve started to reap the rewards from the coaching input and the players’ investment and I suspect in the next few years, it’s going to be a really successful environment, so it’s a great time to recommit to it.
“Not suggesting that they can’t compete for the premiership this year but I suspect we’re probably a year away from being able to be completely comfortable that we’re in that top two.
“I would suspect we’d be looking to next year to continue on with the growth that we’ve had this year, and really be a powerhouse next year in that space.”
It’s not hard to get to the bottom of Cooke’s optimism.
Pakenham’s previous two Outer East Football Netball A-Grade netball seasons saw September come and go without the Lions in the mix, winning 10 games, losing 25 and drawing in one across the 36 games.
But with two games to come in the home and away season, Pakenham is humming, reaching 12 wins from 16 matches to pass the previous two years combined, and sitting in third place on the ladder, just two points back of second.
All the while enduring the heartbreaking setback of losing an “impossible to replace” captain Emma Jones to a “gut-wrenching” injury blow on the eve of the season and having the abundantly talented Eliza Molino snatched from his grasp by higher honours, not only a blow from the individual talent perspective but continuity on the court.
In came Caitlin Cooke upon recovery from a torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament, Millicent Utber from Beaconsfield, Kelly Cousins from Berwick Springs and the dynamic Jordyn Adams on a whim from South Australia, all extremely capable reinforcements but new to the Lions’ system, and another challenge for Cooke to manage over the summer.
“What we tried to do early was build a role-based game style where people know what it is they need to do in specific roles to be successful,” he said.
“It was introducing players to that role and explaining how they could fit the role and develop into it.
“We’ll bring the ball down the court a certain way and certain players have a certain behaviour that we expect from them.
“We’re not talking about A passes to B passes C, that type of thing, because that type of thing doesn’t normally work under pressure; it’s more about understanding, this is how we want to play, and this is my high-level understanding of what the role is.”
With Adams making a case to be the competition’s best player come the end of the year, the Lions are a solid and sound unit, having only dropped games to the competition’s ‘big three’ sides in Wandin, Mt Evelyn and Narre Warren (twice) this season.
It makes Saturday’s battle with Monbulk all the more enticing, and critical in keeping Pakenham’s hopes of reaching the top two alive.
It’s a big ask and with Monbulk one of the surprise packets of 2024, they are not a side to take lightly.
But this is a scenario that Cooke and his Lions have built for in the previous handful of years.
They’ve taken the steps backwards needed to eventually go forward, and on the precipice of a maiden finals assault, there’s a window for considering what is possible.
Molino will return for the finals run, strengthening an already formidable defensive unit, but whether they can maintain the intensity for four quarters will determine how far the Lions can go.
“We think we’re capable of beating anyone on our day,” Cooke said.
“Our success indicator would be to win the first final.
”Whether we finish fourth, fifth, third, whatever, win our first final and we’ll give ourselves a pass mark for the year.
“From there, everything’s a bonus, and we can throw everything at it like it’s a bonus.”
